I’m sitting next to my mother in her newly acquired double wide. We are in Bradenton, Florida at the Trailer Estates, where she now resides during New Hampshire’s winter months. She doesn’t realize I’ve cornered myself into a good working space, an ambitious attempt at writing. She reads me a recipe for chicken and rice baby food. Can’t she see I’m waxing philosophical over here? At any moment gold could be pouring out of my fingertips onto this keyboard, clicking words across the screen in perfect, revelatory order? I get annoyed. She can tell, so she leaves. Suddenly I don’t want her to go. I become desperately interested in how long baby rice should cook before blending.
As soon as I find the courage to write, my dad enters.
Dad (in a powerful voice): Have you seen my glasses?
Mom: Joe, you know there is a drawer of glasses right here.
Dad (whining): Yes, but I want the ones I lost this morning.
Mom (under her breath): Oye - stubborn man.
(Dad exits)
Dad (yelling from the other room): Huuuuuney, what was I looking for?
Mom: Glasses!
Dad: Yeah, where are they?
Mom: In the drawer!
Dad (entering, still yelling sort of): Not those! The ones I lost!
(Eyes roll and they both shoot secret looks at me so as to communicate the madness of the other.)
***
There is panic before stillness. Mom and Dad have gone shopping. Now I have to write. The sun shines on my body, false summer soothing this cough, hushing the building tantrum that comes with proximity to my parents. In a moment I will realize, nobody is here.
When I do, I breathe a little more slowly. My shoulders relax. I think, If I knew I would die tomorrow, I would like nobody around.
Is it strange to want a lonely death? Is it the animal of my body or this personality that craves it?
I resist being seen as what I am. Yet I desire that sincerity from you. I want to be there for your birth. I want to be there for your death, your illness, your pain, your fear. I want to soak in the unbearably honest moment. The one that pokes holes in the mask so that light shines through, brilliant and embarrassing. I imagine being brave enough for that - letting a luminescent fart, standing naked in front of a classroom, publicly forgetting the lines to nothing that matters. Begging, in all ugliness, for the world to love me.
***
For my birthday this year I got a flesh-eating bacteria on my face and a mild case of bronchitis. This did not bode well for my happy vacation. It started out small…then spread fast and suddenly there was threat of necrotic tissue, loss of an eye, blood poisoning. When I told the doctor I had been celebrating in a divey bar, proposing it as the site of bacterial contraction, he laughed and said, “This wouldn’t have happened unless you were rubbing your face on the floor.” I remembered the weird dancing, the handstands and the repeated face touching in expressions of gratitude.
Me: I think it has gotten worse.
Mom (pale-faced, wide-eyed, struggling to keep her voice calm): Hmmm. Yes I think we should go to the hospital now.
Dad (without having seen it): Wait a second, let’s make sure. (looks at my face, assumes similar tone of voice to Mom, delicate and afraid) Ok, you’re probably right. Trina, get in the car.
I left the emergency room pumped full of antibiotics and antihistamines. I felt sorry for myself on the ride home. Felt like a little girl and ashamed to feel like a little girl at 32. It took two days for me to realize this has been the best worst birthday ever.
Revelations:
* Feeling beautiful doesn’t require both cheeks.
* Doing things for people makes me feel beautiful.
* Not complaining is hard and contagious.
* Contrary to popular belief, they do provide recycling services here at Trailer Estates.
* I don’t want to die alone. I want to be seen.
